Small Business Win

I own a little business in Forest Lake, Minnesota called Big Apple Bagels. For those of you who aren't familiar with the franchise, Big Apple Bagels has a few other locations across the country; our head honchos are located in Illinois. Each location is independently owned, but what makes us unique is we are not on the corner of every street. Our bakery products are made fresh FROM SCRATCH every day! Nothing frozen about our baked goods!

My husband and I have owned our location for the last ten years. We've had a lot of fun getting more involved with our community and meeting new people over the simple things like bagels, muffins and coffee.

At the end of April, 2021, I was approached by our director of marketing. She emailed me and told me about a partnership the Oreo company wanted to do with Big

Apple Bagels. Yes. Oreo as in that classic sandwich cookie. Now, don't ask me how Oreo got in touch with Big Apple, but there you go. We were going to make Oreo inspired muffins, bagels, cream cheese AND coffee drinks! As our corporate office had more conversations with the company, Oreo wanted to pick one location to send a social media influencer to. This person is a professional! They are ALL ABOUT the social media; taking fancy photos, blogging ... you name it, they are the expert!

When the time came for that one location to be picked, well. Apparently our corporate office thought MY STORE would be the best location.

Our director of marketing said that I was my own influencer when it came to our community, our store and the brand as a whole. They knew my store would be the best

choice.

I got the chance to work with a marketing team, helped write a press release and get in touch with other media influencers; the local papers, radio and T.V. To quote our corporate office, "You are already a Big Apple Bagels influencer. Your efforts promote the brand beyond Forest Lake all of the time.

What a time to be a business owner!